Passenger numbers at Beirut’s Rafik Hariri International Airport hit 1,159,815 in June, up 9  per cent compared to the same period last year, said a report.

From the beginning of the year until August, a total of 6,002,040 passengers passed through the airport, up from the 5,536,725 passengers recorded within the same period last year, a report in The Daily Star said.

In terms of aircraft movements, a total of 400 flights arrived at Beirut Airport in August, an increase of 9 per cent year-on-year, and the number of flights departing reached 4,012, marking a 9.4 per cent increase.

While transit flights decreased in July compared to last year, the report said that they had now increased by 48.8 per cent in August.

The airport again surpassed its passenger capacity of 6 million, having welcomed 8,234,782 travellers through 2017.

“We are distributing the times of flights in order to decrease congestion,” an airport official previously told The Daily Star.

But at the same time, “this congestion indicates that we need to expand the airport – it’s a must,” the official had said, referring to the long-term plan to raise capacity to more than 20 million passengers per year.

According to a presentation prepared by the DGCA in March, a $500 million expansion project will be completed by the end of this year, with the tender for the expansion expected to be issued in December 2019 and a contract awarded in June 2020, the report said.